


twisting to the sun and the moon

by rodfaestet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Pet Names, check author's note for more warnings, pretty low on the angst really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 05:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5855320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rodfaestet/pseuds/rodfaestet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Finn wakes up alone on Jakku, he feels like crying. His emotions thrum underneath his skin, and he can’t hear anything over the rushing of blood in his ears. He misses Poe Dameron, in a desperate way, the kind of longing he can feel in his bones. He pulls on Poe’s jacket, feels the leather against his skin, and a small part of him feels settled. </p><p>Or; the bdsm au where things are messy and nothing's perfect, but Finn and Poe find each other anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	twisting to the sun and the moon

**Author's Note:**

> first fic ever, and written over the course of three days, mostly in the middle of the night. this was a labour of love and I'm happy with the results but if you catch any editing mistakes, please point them out in the comments.
> 
> the 'past abuse' tag exists because of descriptions of general First Order crap with a Dom/sub twist. nothing too graphic, though (but if shock collars and electricity stuff triggers you I would maybe err on the side of caution)
> 
> (title from Re: Stacks by Bon Iver)

_Jakku’s heat is blazing, searing into FN-2187’s body underneath the Stormtrooper uniform. The sweat collects under the collar around his neck, gathering until it makes the leather and metal stick to skin._

Eight-Seven blinks, and he’s in the dormitory, grey sheets and grey pillowcases and grey walls. A new trooper has been brought in, moved into Slip’s vacant bed. Whenever Eight-Seven closes his eyes, he can see that blood-smear, crimson on white and bleeding into the sands of the desert. He represses a shudder, keeps his posture straight. Like a good boy. Like a good _sub_.

Days pass, and every time he looks in the mirror, the blinking light on his collar catches his eye. It remains a warning, the First Order taunting their soldiers with the threat of white-hot pain.

They’d tried to take them off, rotations ago. Eight-Seven and some others, HK and Fiver. They had knelt in the silence of the communal showers, with FN-2230 keeping watch, and HK took pliers to Fiver’s neck. It had almost worked, the padlock nearly broken through, when Phasma caught them. FN-2230 was crying, body shaking as the electricity coursing through him caused spasms, and he was stuttering apologies. After each one, they became more violent, Phasma pressing the control over and over.

None of them had avoided the pain that night. Fiver still has the scars.

 

When the opportunity to escape presents itself, Eight-Seven jumps. HK is guarding the pilot, avoids Eight-Seven’s gaze – hasn’t looked at him since that night – but allows him to leave with the prisoner.

When he removes his helmet, looks into the pilot’s eyes, he feels like something behind his ribcage is sparking. This is a different kind of energy, not like the burning agony he’s used to. The pilot must feel it too, his breath accelerating as he reaches out. Eight-Seven goes willingly, turning his face into the calloused palm that rests on his cheek.

“ _Fuck.”_ the pilot says wonderingly. “We need to get out of here.”

Eight-Seven nods “We can – uh – there’s ships we can take,” he replies, stumbling over his words “can you fly a TIE fighter?”

The pilot smirks “I can fly anything.”

Eight-Seven turns to move, but he stops, remembering something. “Wait,”

“Yeah, what is it, what’s wrong?”

The blood rushes to Eight-Seven’s cheeks, shame sitting like lead in his stomach. He gestures brokenly to his neck “I need this off,” he says, showing the pilot the pliers he’d stolen from one of the engineers’ toolboxes “but I can’t reach. Could you...?”

The pilot doesn’t move for a second, and his expression twists into something angry.

“A shock collar. A goddamn shock collar.”

Eight-Seven squirms, and immediately the pilot cuts himself off, moves closer “No hey, it’s okay,” he gentles “just, I would burn this entire place to the ground if I could, how fucking _dare they_.”

The pilot takes the pliers, and succeeds at what Eight-Seven was never able to do. Suddenly, he is liberated, and the thick black leather hits the floor loudly. Wordlessly, he grabs the pilot’s hand and leads him to the flight deck.

 

Aboard the ship, the pilot’s voice breaks through the noise of the guns, the machinery.

“What’s your name?” He – _Poe Dameron_ – asks. Eight-Seven hesitates, states his designation. Poe looks over, the space between his eyebrows creasing.

“I’m not calling you that.” He states. “Not my – whatever, FN? How about Finn?”

Eight-Seven repeats the word, experiences the way it feels in his mouth “Yeah,” he says, “yeah, I like Finn.”

 

When Finn wakes up alone on Jakku, he feels like crying. His emotions thrum underneath his skin, and he can’t hear anything over the rushing of blood in his ears. He _misses_ Poe Dameron, in a desperate way, the kind of longing he can feel in his bones. He pulls on Poe’s jacket, feels the leather against his skin, and a small part of him feels settled. Taking a deep breath, Finn stares out onto the desolate sand dunes, and takes a step forward.

The feeling of settlement doesn’t last long.

Finn finds Rey, and sometimes he thinks that she soothes the ache in his chest. At night, though, when the air is still and the sky darkens, Finn talks about Poe Dameron. About the way he handled the controls of the TIE fighter with steady ease, about the way his eyes burned bright. About the fire he left blazing in Finn’s heart.

“Finn,” Rey says softly, interrupting his description of Poe Dameron’s curls “do you think… Is there any possibility that Poe Dameron was your Dom?”

Finn looks at her helplessly “I… I hope not, Rey do you think he was? But he was so kind, Rey, he couldn’t be.”

“Whoa, Finn, calm down,” Rey’s eyes are wide, and she shuffles nearer to him so that their thighs press together “I thought you liked him?”

“I _did,_ ” Finn all but wails “I thought he was different.”

“Different from who?” Rey pushes.

Finn is about to answer, to describe the shackles they used to put him in when he was training, the cane that was always left resting against the wall, but his brain grinds to a halt. “No one. I just, I thought Doms were bad?”

Rey looks scandalised “Finn, no. I mean, some of them maybe, but they’re just people.”

All of his life, Finn has been terrified of Doms. Phasma, Ren, Hux – in the First Order, all they want is control and to inflict pain. Still, he clings to Rey’s words. “So Poe Dameron - he might have been mine?”

Rey shrugs. “I don’t know; I’ve just heard stories. About Doms and subs, the way they bond. The way they settle each other.”

Finn thinks about the way he’s felt off-kilter since the TIE fighter crashed, and tips his head back, screws his eyes shut. “He’s dead.”

There’s a pressure on his shoulder, and when he looks up Rey’s expression is – different.

“I’m sorry, Finn.”

Finn shakes his head, swallows the lump in his throat. A thought occurs to him. “Rey, are you a Dom?”

She shrugs.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m one, maybe I’m the other. Maybe I’m neither,” she looks up at him “maybe I’m just fucked up.”

“You aren’t fucked up,” Finn says fiercely. “You’re my best friend.”

 

Rey’s words are still playing on a feedback loop inside his head as he watches the X-wings fly.

 

Finding Poe Dameron on the tarmac feels like the best thing that’s ever happened to Finn. Pushing his face against the neck of the man he thought was dead, the world around them falls away. Distantly, Finn can hear noises, and he realises with a start that Poe is talking, an endless stream of words.

_“Baby sweetheart darling, fuck I’m so glad you’re here I’m so glad you’re safe I’m so sorry we had to be apart, fuck, honey”_

Finn pulls back from the embrace, his mind fuzzy. “I thought you were dead” he chokes out, and Poe looks devastated.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

Finn nods, trusting every word he says. “It’s okay. Can you hold me again, please?”

“You don’t need to beg for that, not for anything,” Poe murmurs, reaching for him. “I’d give you the world. Is that my jacket?”

Looking down at the worn leather, Finn blushes hotly, moves to take it off. Poe shakes his head, takes Finn’s hands and kisses his knuckles.

“Keep it. It suits you.”

Someone shouts Poe’s name then, and the illusion is shattered. They are not in their own world; they are at war. Life moves quickly when there is so much at stake.

“I have to go,” Poe says, eyes full of regret “stay safe, okay darling? I’ll see you later. We’ll talk about everything, I promise.”

Finn steps back, mind spinning. “Poe?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“Are you my Dom?”

He keeps his eyes trained on the ground as he asks the question, back ramrod straight. He only looks up when he feels a hand stroking the line of his cheekbone. Poe is standing in front of him, adoration clear in his eyes.

“If you’ll have me. Yeah, baby, I’m yours.”

Quickly, so quick that Finn barely registers it happening, Poe presses his lips to Finn’s cheek, turning and jogging towards his X-wing. Finn cherishes the image of Poe, his Dom, wind catching his hair as he leans against the metal.

 

Poe Dameron. His Dom.

 

Every experience that Finn has had with a Dom has been painful, left him shaking for days and unable to keep his rations down. But the way his body floated when Poe touched him – Poe’s different from the others.

The last emotion that Finn registers as Kylo Ren leaves him in the snow is anger. Anger that the First Order has truly stolen everything from him, stolen his chance at true happiness with the man that was meant for him, anger that Poe will be left alone.

 

Waking up surrounded by medical droids is a surprise. He struggles, sure for a second that he was back with the First Order, that the sanitised and sterile walls of the medical bay signalled that he had been captured.

His panic resides when calloused palms touch his shoulders, nudging him back onto the pillows.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

Finn looks up and meets Poe’s dark eyes, gentle and kind. Relief flows through him as he realises that he’s alive, that Poe’s _here,_ that everything might be okay. “Hi” he replies, voice rough. Immediately, Poe reaches to the table beside him, holds a glass of water to his lips.

“Shh, you’ve been asleep for two weeks, take it easy for a bit, okay?”

Closing his eyes, Finn’s heart soars as he realises that his Dom is taking care of him, at how right this feels, as if it was always meant to be this way. Then Poe’s words register.

“Two weeks? Where’s Rey, is she okay?”

“She’s safe, she’s gone to find Skywalker. You took a lightsaber to the back, babe. It’s a miracle that you’re even awake right now, the doctors,” Poe clears his throat “the doctors said it might be months, years.”

“I’m sorry” Finn offers weakly, but Poe shakes his head.

“Don’t apologise. God, Finn, you have no idea how glad I am that you’re here.”

Finn huffs. “I might have some idea. I _did_ think you were dead for a while.”

Immediately, he regrets his decision; you don’t talk back to Doms. When he risks looking up, though, Poe’s eyes are soft.

“Yeah,” he says “we’ve had a rough time, haven’t we sweetheart?”

Finn blushes deeply at that, reaches for him. Poe goes willingly, leaning his knees on the edge of Finn’s mattress as he presses their foreheads together.

“It’ll be okay now, I promise. I’ll look after you” he swears.

 

Weeks pass, and Finn begins physio-therapy, days dedicated to relearning how his body works. The harsh commands of the First Order officers are replaced with the soft directions of the Resistance nurses and medical droids.

Best of all, Poe is there. His Dom comes to see him every day, sometimes streaked with engine oil, and Finn yearns to touch him, to feel the slip of the oil underneath his fingers against smooth skin. After years of repression, of being told that his desires were filthybad _wrong,_ Finn aches to touch the other man. Kept strictly on bed rest when he isn’t doing his exercises, he has to make do with the chaste, brief touches Poe grants him.

 

After the doctors give permission for Finn to leave the medical bay, Poe takes him to the lake near the Resistance base. The water is crystal clear, and Poe jumps into it, his muscles sparkling when the light hits the droplets that collect on his shoulders. Finn stays close to the shore.

“Baby,” Poe implores, pulling a hand through his slicked-back curls “come in, it’s fine.”  

Finn shakes his head, feeling giddy with happiness as the sun shines on his shoulders and the man he loves smiles as if Finn is his whole world. “I can’t swim” he says simply, and a wicked grin makes its way onto Poe’s face.

“I’ll teach you. C’mere” he beckons, and Finn cautiously makes his way into the water, feeling the smooth stones under his feet and the cool water against his thighs. When he gets within arm’s reach of Poe, the man surges forward, grabs Finn’s hips and pulls him in deeper.

Submerged up to their shoulders, they stare at each other for a second, and Finn makes a move. They kiss, and it feels like every cell in Finn’s body is coalescing, as if there are fireworks going off in his veins.

Poe bites Finn’s bottom lip, hard enough to sting, and draws back. His eyes are bright, and up this close Finn can see the freckles that gather across his nose.

“I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you” he says, and Finn grins at him.

“I love you” is all he can reply, moving to kiss along Poe’s jawline, licking at the water and sweat on his skin. Poe’s hands move to touch Finn’s neck reverently.

“I love you so much, darling.”

 

Finn was expecting the bad days, had been warned over and over by doctors that the shock would hit him at some point, that the honeymoon period couldn’t last forever.

He wasn’t expecting it to happen when Poe was away on a mission. He wakes up in a cold sweat, moisture drenching the blankets of his and Poe’s shared bed. His head hurts, his body aches, everything feels too cold, the noise of machinery in the distance feels too loud.

Finn decides to stay in bed.

After some length of time – hours, days, Finn doesn’t know – there’s a knock on the door. He stays quiet, cowering under the pile of blankets he’s using in a vain attempt to avoid the piercing chill of the air.

“Finn? Are you okay?” the voice calls, and distantly, he recognises the voice as belonging to one of the nurses. Determined not to be any trouble, Finn stays quiet for a second before clearing his throat, trying to shake out the panic he feels.

“I’m fine, just tired. I’m okay” he calls, his voice treacherously shaking. The voice is quiet for a second.

“Alright, as long as you’re sure. Would you like me to call Commander Dameron?” they offer, and Finn flinches at the idea of making Poe worry.

“No! No, I’m fine, really, it’s fine.”

No one else comes to see him, and Finn remains unmoving, focusing on his breathing. He tries not to think about what this means, this breakdown. How he’s broken, not the type of sub that deserves a Dom like Poe Dameron.

How he needs to be punished for this.

 

Finn is woken up by the sound of the door opening, someone kicking off a pair of boots.

“Finn?” Poe says softly, from the other side of the room. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

Finn curls up tight, draws the blankets around his face. He can hear Poe moving closer, feels the pressure on the mattress as he kneels next to him.

“Honey, I’d really love to see your face right now” Poe’s tone is gentle, and Finn’s skin _burns_ , because he doesn’t deserve this.

“You’re scaring me” he hears his Dom say, and he can’t help bursting into tears. He’s causing so much pain to this wonderful man, a good sub wouldn’t do that. Poe’s movements become more frantic when Finn begins to cry, but they remain careful, gentle.

His palm touches Finn’s face, and despite himself, Finn leans into it. “There you are,” Poe says “sweetheart, talk to me.”

Sitting up, Finn chokes out “How can you even look at me?”

Poe makes a noise as if he’s been punched in the stomach, moves even closer.

“Finn, you listen to me, I _love_ you. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours right now, but nothing could ever make me stop loving you, okay?”

“But – I’m so _bad,_ I’m a terrible sub and you deserve so much better than me, I’m fucking broken, Poe.”

Finn closes his eyes, expecting a blow and steeling himself for one, but instead he feels a hand under his chin, encouraging him to look up. Poe’s eyes are serious, and the love in them makes the pressure behind Finn’s ribcage swell.

“You’re mine, Finn. You saved my life, you saved thousands of people’s lives, you’re the bravest person I know, and I’m honoured to call you mine, alright? You’re the best sub I could have asked for, and I’m so glad I found you.”

Poe opens his arms, and Finn goes, curling up on his Dom’s lap and hiding his face in the juncture between Poe’s shoulder and neck.

“Baby,” Poe continues “you aren’t broken, but you’ve had to deal with so much, it’s okay to sometimes have bad days. You know when I have those nightmares?” he says, and pauses until Finn nods. “They don’t mean I’m broken; it just means that Kylo Ren fucked my mind up. And you went through that for _years_ , honey. You’re a fucking miracle.”

He wraps his arms around Finn, presses a kiss to his hair. “You’re _my_ miracle.”

 

Poe hand feeds him that night, holds him close and presses shreds of sugary pastry to his lips. Later, freshly showered and skin still warm, Finn cuddles up to his Dom and starts to talk about the First Order.

“When I found out that you were a Dom, I was scared of you” he says, and Poe inhales sharply but doesn’t interrupt “they weren’t, um, they weren’t very nice before.”

He tells Poe all of it, talks for an hour about the pain. When he mentions the collars, the night he’d spent in a cell with electricity coursing through his body, Poe’s jaw tightens.

“I wanted to kill everyone on that base, when I saw you in that thing. God, Finn,” he says “I really need to hold you now, is that okay?”

Finn nods, wraps his arms around Poe’s neck and lets their limbs intertwine. “I love you” he says quietly.

“I love you _so much_ ” Poe says fervently.

They fall asleep like that, Finn’s head cushioned by Poe’s chest, and Finn is lulled to sleep by the rhythmic sound of his breathing.

 

Sunlight is filtering through the window when Finn wakes, and he stretches out, revelling in the warmth. After years of fluorescent lighting and dimly lit corridors, natural light still feels like a revelation. Poe is awake already, sitting up with the blankets gathered around his thighs, and he’s drawing, sketching something in a worn leather notepad.

“You draw?” he asks, voice still scratchy from crying. Poe looks up, smiles warmly.

“Not really, I wasn’t given lessons or anything.” he says, reaching behind him to grab a bottle of water “Here, honey, drink this.”

“I’ve never tried,” Finn replies, twisting the cap open “they didn’t really encourage that type of thing.”

Poe nods, mouth twisting. “Yeah, I guess not. Hey, babe, c’mere” he says, vulnerability clear in his voice. Finn obliges, moves closer and tucks himself under Poe’s arm, forehead against his jaw. They sit like that for a while, and finally Finn notices the time.

“You’re missing training,” he says “why aren’t you there, shouldn’t you be?”

His voice is straining, and immediately Poe hushes him, rubbing his shoulders soothingly.

“Hey, shh, it’s fine, Jessika’s covering for me,” he says “I just couldn’t – after last night, I think we need some time for just us, yeah baby?”

“I don’t want to be any trouble” Finn says quietly.

Poe stays quiet for a minute, but Finn can feel the tension in his shoulders. Just as he’s about to apologise for whatever he’s done, Poe speaks.

“Sweetheart, you’re the most important thing in my life. If you ever need anything, just say the word and I’ll come running. I promised I’d look after you, didn’t I?”

Finn nods, lets the loving words envelope him, and sinks into a warm headspace, cradled by the love of his life.

 

Months pass in images of sunshine and laughter, Poe pressing against Finn and kissing him until he’s dizzy in their quarters, in the corridors, on the Resistance flight deck after a victorious homecoming. They both wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, pulses racing, but they take care of each other. Rey comes back, and Finn is the happiest he’s ever been. It isn’t perfect, it’s not like the happy endings of the folk stories Poe tells him when it rains, but it’s the happiest ending Finn could ever imagine.

 


End file.
